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Show MAKING DIRT ROADS BETTER Foreman Must Know What, How and When to Plow Avoid Building Up Too Much at One Time. (By E. VAN BENTHUYSEN.) With a sandy soil and a subsoil of clay, or clay and gravel, plow deep so as to raise and mix the clay with '.he surface soil and sand. The combination com-bination forma a sand-clay road at trifling expense. If the road be entirely of sand a mistake will be made if it is plowed, unless clay can be added. Such plowing plow-ing would merely deepen the sand, and at the same time break up the small amount of hard surface material which may have formed. If the subsoil is clay, and the surface sur-face scant in sand or gravel, plowing should not be resorted to, as it would result in a clay surface rather than one of sand or gravel. A road foreman must know not only what to plow and what not to plow, but how and when to plow. If the road is of the kind which, according ac-cording to the above instructions, Bhould be plowed over its whole width, the best method is to run the first furrow in the middle of the road and work out to the sides, thus forming a crown. Results from such plowing are greatest in spring or early summer. In ditches a plow can be used to good advantage, but should be followed fol-lowed by a scraper or grader. To make wide, deep ditches nothing better bet-ter than the ordinary drag scraper has ce, '.om I ! - ' . ' 1 ' KU- 'St$ .'i'" 1 o , ' ? 4 J A Virginia Road After Improvement With Top Soil Gravel. yet been devised. For hauls under 100 feet, or in making "fills," it Is especially espe-cially serviceable. It Is a mistake, however, to attempt to handle long-haul material with this scraper, as the wheel-scraper is better bet-ter adapted to such work. For hauls of more than 800 feet, a wagon should be used. The machine most generally used in road work is the grader or road machine. This machine is especially espe-cially useful in smoothing and crowning crown-ing the road and in opening ditches. A clay subsoil under a thin coating of soil should not be disturbed with a grader. It is also a mistake to use a grader indiscriminately and to pull material from ditches upon a sandy road. Not infrequently turf, soil and silt from ditch bottoms are piled in the middle of the road in a ridge, making mudholes a certainty. It is important in using a grader to avoid building up the road too much at one time. A road gradually built up by frequent use of the grader will last better than if completed at one operation. The foreman frequently thinks his road must be high in the first instance. He piles up material from ten Inches to a foot in depth, only to learn, with the arrival of the first rain, that he has furnished the material for so many Inches of mud. All material should be brought up in thin layers, each layer well puddled and firmly packed by a roller or traffic before the next is added. A common mistake is to crown too high with the road machine on a narrow road. The split-log drag should be used to fill the ruts and smooth the road when not too badly washed. The drag possesses pos-sesses great merit and is so simple in construction and operation that every farmer should have one. |